It's hard to believe, since the conventional wisdom that Tyler Flowers was the catcher to own in Atlanta has long lingered in my consciousness, but Kurt Suzuki has actually been one of the more effective second-half catchers in the entire league. Upon some deeper delving, I know I was surprised to discover that among catchers with 100 minimum AB since the break, Suzuki's wOBA of .391 is tied for third-best in MLB. Only Willson Contreras and Welington Castillo have outdone him in this metric. His line this weekend was a tasty 4-8, 2 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI. For further context on how sturdy Suzuki has been in fantasy since mid-July, one need only see that he's accomplished it all with the second-lowest BABIP (.272) among the top-20-wOBA-achieving backstops in that span. It's also worth praising his tie with Jonathan Lucroy for lowest C strikeout percentage (12.1%) in the second half. I'm digging the .340 September AVG that has produced five XBH, eight runs and eight RBI also. None of this is to disparage what Flowers brings to the table, but it's more geared toward thinking of the Braves' two-headed platoon atop the depth chart as being way more even than many realize. It's so easy to consider the guy with more playing time as the alpha dog, but Suzuki has the same number of RBI and seven more HRs than Flowers in 42 fewer at-bats. He's poised to do great things for fantasy owners this week, especially later on. Suzuki has hit just .174 against the Mets this year, albeit with three RBI and five runs scored—a .345 OBP against New York has been nicely padded by four walks despite the relative hitting inefficiency. Fast forward to Thursday at Marlins Park, though, and get ready for Suzuki to eat when he starts: he's gone .400 with eight runs this year at the expense of Miami's pitching staff.
Now, for some notes on several other hitters' outings this past weekend:
